Why Resist a Rebel - By Leah Ashton Page 0,65

thing she knew he was gone, and she was standing alone in her tiny apartment. So she walked to her kitchen, and turned on her kettle. Then, with fingers that shook only slightly, she found a new mug, and tore open a packet of noodles.

And the night continued on exactly as she’d planned.

It had to.

The Riva, Split, Croatia—two weeks later

Ruby strolled across the wide, smooth tiles that paved Split’s Riva, a line of towering palm trees to her right, the Adriatic Sea to her left.

Beside her was—Tom? Maybe. Some guy who’d been on the walking tour of Diocletian’s Palace that she’d just completed. She’d paid little attention to the tour, to be honest, and hadn’t even noticed the tall, blond thirty-something guy who now walked beside her.

Accepting his invitation for an ice cream and a walk had been a reflex action. She needed to move on—needed a distraction, she supposed. The occasional times she did date, it was always somewhere like this—somewhere exotic and amazing where everything was light and, importantly, temporary. No hopes, no expectations.

She hadn’t touched her ice cream, and it had begun to run in rivulets down the waffle cone as it melted, trickling stickily onto her hand.

The breeze whipped off the ocean, and she shivered despite the warm autumn sun.

Tom was talking about what he did back in Canada.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. ‘I shouldn’t have accepted your invitation. I’m...’ What? Getting over a break up? That didn’t sound right in her head. Too...trivial. So she just finished lamely: ‘...not interested.’

Ouch. Quite rightly, Tom was less than impressed. He plucked her cone from her fingers, and dumped it, along with his, in a bin, before walking away.

Ruby felt a little bad, but mostly relieved. Not her proudest moment, but she just couldn’t pretend any more.

This little side trip to Split for a week before pre-production began in London was not exactly what she needed. It was not the perfect distraction.

It was not helping her relax and gain some perspective and just, well...get over it.

Get over Dev.

She’d been standing looking at nothing out at the ocean, so now she turned away, heading for the small apartment she was staying in, on the second floor of a local family’s stone cottage, right at the end of the Riva.

Maybe she should move her flight forward. Choosing to be alone was obviously her mistake. Surely her friend Carly wouldn’t mind if she moved in a few days early? And she was fabulous at entertaining her guests. A few nights out with her and then Dev and The Land would all be a distant memory...

Right. Kind of like how she’d told herself that working for Dev for another week wouldn’t be so bad, even though she’d then spent every hour of her work day preventing herself from throwing herself at him and babbling something ridiculous about having made a terrible mistake...

It had been most frustrating. She had done the right thing.

For her.

She didn’t need Dev. She’d been absolutely happy before she’d met him. She didn’t need Dev to make her life complete, to give her anything in life she wasn’t perfectly capable of achieving herself. Her life was full and lovely and gorgeous—and she didn’t need a partner, and certainly not a husband, to finish it off.

And she’d hate herself if she ever let herself believe differently.

It wasn’t peak tourist season in Croatia, and so around her people dotted the Riva, rather than cramming it full. Some were obviously tourists—couples holding hands, families with small crowds of children. Others not so much. An older couple walking in companionable silence, a group of women chatting enthusiastically away.

I wish Dev were here.

The thought came out of the blue, and Ruby walked faster, as if to escape her traitorous subconscious.

The thing was, now wasn’t the first time she’d wished such a thing.

Like on the plane to Heathrow, where one of the movies was so awful she’d turned in her seat to list all its flaws before realising that it was a stranger snoring softly beside her, and not Dev.

Or waking up in her gorgeous little Split apartment, the sun flooding through gossamer curtains onto her bed, and she’d turned and reached out for familiar, strong, warm, male skin.

But all she’d touched was emptiness.

She really needed to get over this.

She’d never spent every night with a guy like that—never in her whole life. That had been her mistake. She’d got too used to him, and now he was like a habit. A